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New Sponge Can Soak Up and Release Spilled Oil Hundreds of Times (newscientist.com)
Seth Darling and his colleagues at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois have created a new material that can absorb up to 90 times its own weight in spilled oil and then be squeezed out like a sponge and reused. This is compared to most commercial products used for soaking up oil, called "sorbents," which act like a paper towel and are only good for a single use. Once the sorbents are used, they get incinerated along with the oil. New Scientist reports: The oil sponge consists of a simple foam made of polyurethane or polyimide plastics and coated with "oil-loving" silane molecules with a sweet spot for capturing oil. Too little chemical attraction would render the sponge useless as an absorber, whereas too much would mean the oil could not be released. In laboratory tests, the researchers found that when engineered with just the right amount of silane, their foam could repeatedly soak up and release oil with no significant changes in capacity. But to determine whether this material could help sort out a big spill in marine waters, they needed to perform a special large-scale test. To do this, the team made an array of square pads of the sponge material measuring around 6 square meters. "We made a lot of the foam, and then these pieces of foam were placed inside mesh bags -- basically laundry bags, with sewn channels to house the foam," Darling says. The researchers suspended their sponge-filled bags from a bridge over a large pool specially designed for practicing emergency responses to oil spills. They then dragged the sponges behind a pipe spewing crude oil to test the material's capability to remove oil from the water. They next sent the sponges through a wringer to remove the oil and then repeated the process, carrying out many tests over multiple days. This so-far unpublished test was conducted in early December at the National Oil Spill Response Research and Renewable Energy Test Facility in Leonardo, New Jersey. Here's a video showing the sponge in action.
Years ago I read about someone who stuffed hair (collected from barbers/stylists) into a mesh-like tube that soaked up oil as it floated along the surface of the water... cheap and reusable.
No sig for you! Come back one year!
This is slashdot. Oil spills are no big deal. Human effect on the environment is negligible. That oil would have leaked out naturally anyway. Thank you.
for the TRUMP energy policies.
Who'd a thunk?
A product where we can reuse the precious oil instead of having to consider it lost.
Yes, I'm dead serious. This is maybe what would make oil companies interested in cleaning up their mess. What's in it for them if they can't use the oil anymore after cleaning up the spill? But if they can still use the oil, their motivation to clean up rises.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
We all know oil seeps naturally ... but to say 'without harm' is just nonsense. A tanker of oil in a rivermouth? In rthe middle of a fishery. Even if you care nothing for the environment (cf. your other comments), how about the econimic damage?
Time for bed, said Zebedee - boing
Will this work like a oleophilic belt skimmer? Which do a pretty good job for a very reasonable price. And you can set a skimmer to work continuously. Days, week's or months they just keep rotating and removing the oil. There are always uses for different types of oil recovery and this sponge will have its place.
Passionately Indifferent
This is very cool, and I hope it can enter production soon. That said, how well does it work on other materials? i.e. if an oil spill has already made it to land, can these be used to clean up beaches? What about other flotsam that may be in the area of a spill?
No matter what, it appears to be better than anything else at the moment, but I'd be interested in how it does outside of a pristine environment.
Sick of oily, pimply skin? Well thanks to, of all places, New Jersey, there's a solution! This foam, in makeup-sponge sizes.
Isn't this what Shamwow does?
So what if a sponge can soak up and release spilled oil hundreds of times?
His dumb starfish friend will just spill the oil thousands of times.
Maybe you can give a trillion of these sponges to "that" Pipeline company that runs down the middle of the USA. Even their very newest projects are leaking into rivers.
I don't buy any kind of uber fancy paper towels from the store but I can certainly wring them out and reuse them when I am wiping up a big spill in the kitchen or near the table.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Very shortly the Drumpf administration will issue an executive order putting an end to this wasteful and pointless research.